Doherty & Ors v Birmingham City Council

The question in this case is whether a local authority can obtain a summary order for possession against an occupier of a site which it owns and has been used for many years as a gipsy and travellers' caravan site. His licence to occupy the site has come to an end. He has no enforceable right to remain there under English property law. But he claims that his removal would violate his rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The facts

The local authority, the respondent, is the freeholder of the site which is known as the Travellers' Site, Tameside Drive, Castle Vale, Birmingham. The site comprises 16 concrete stands for caravans and four ablution blocks. The appellant was granted a licence by the respondent to station a caravan on plot 12 in September 1987. His licence was extended to include plot 14 in November 1998. He and his family had been resident on the site for about 17 years when on 4 March 2004 the respondent served a notice to quit. Section 2 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 provides that such a notice shall be of no effect unless it was given not less than four weeks before the date on which it is to take effect. The period of notice that was given expired on 10 May 2004.

The respondent commenced these proceedings in the Birmingham County Court on 27 May 2004. On the same day the European Court of Human Rights gave judgment in Connors v United Kingdom (2005) 40 EHRR 9. It held that the eviction of a family of gipsies from a gipsy site by a local authority was a violation of their rights under article 8 of the Convention. As in this case, the local authority had served a notice to quit which had brought to an end the family's licence to occupy. The family no longer had an enforceable right to remain on the site under English property law. But the court found that, while a legitimate aim was being pursued by the local authority, the eviction of the applicant and his family could not be regarded as necessary in pursuit of that aim as it was not attended by procedural safeguards that would enable the applicant to challenge the factual basis on which the local authority decided to serve the notice. They had been evicted on the ground that they were troublemakers, and it was asserted that they had breached the licence agreement. The applicant disputed these allegations, but he was not given the opportunity to challenge them in court.

The respondent in this case asserted in its particulars of claim that it required vacant possession of the site to carry out essential improvement works. Once the works were complete the site was to be managed as temporary accommodation for travellers. Genuine travellers, it was said, were currently deterred from going on the site because of the presence there of the appellant and his family. As a…

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